Sticks and Stones

Remember that old rhyme that your parents used to recite every time you fell out with someone as a kid? Ah, if only it were true.

Sticks and stones may break my bones

But names will never hurt me

Names hurt. Harsh words sting. Cruelty is punishment.

I like to kid myself that people grow out of being bullies and that by adulthood we should be free of the cruelty of youth. However, that hasn’t been my experience. Far from being toughened up by being bullied as a child, I find myself still fairly easily hurt by the cruel words of other adults, even complete strangers. But then, I am a sensitive soul, and I wouldn’t dream of taking that away from myself. I wonder if those people were like the bullies I encountered in childhood. Have they always been that way? Or were they themselves bullied as a child and have in turn become the bully?

The internet is a strange land, full of people from all walks of life. But it does seem to be the case that while it can be a wonderful tool for communication, it can also bring out the worst in people. It’s easy to lash out at people you don’t really know well, to say things that you would never dream of saying to their face.

Meaning can get lost, especially on a medium like Twitter where characters are limited so harshly. It’s hard to get a point across succinctly sometimes. But at other times it is abundantly clear that a person’s intent is to cause upset, or at the very least, they don’t care if they do. I’ve been guilty in the past of being rather blunt on the internet, and have gotten into disagreements with people, so I’m not claiming perfection. But I like to think that I’ve grown as I’ve matured and such incidents are less and less frequent.

All communities have their sharks, I’ve found. Amongst the wonderful, friendly and supportive folks, there are usually a handful who care little for the feelings of others. The “bigger fish” in any group often seem to be very popular, surrounding themselves with devoted fans, but when you scratch the surface you find that there’s not a great deal of warmth there. They are effective salespeople, having sold their personality to a lot of people through a carefully crafted online persona, but they have a ruthless edge that is easily provoked. I’ve encountered two such people in totally different circles in the last few years and both times it has come as a rude awakening.

While vicious words hissed across the internet can be shocking, sometimes the deepest wounds are inflicted by indifference.

I had a falling out with a friend about two and a half years ago and she said the most upsetting thing that anyone has ever said to me. She told me that arguing with me was insignificant to her, I mattered so little to her that she wasn’t remotely affected by our argument. That was like a knife to the chest, as I considered her to be one of, if not my single closest friend and our argument was utterly devastating to me. While we were actual “real life” friends, the entire argument took place via text message. Would she have said such a hurtful thing to my face? Maybe. Maybe not. We haven’t spoken since.

Thankfully such painful experiences are rare, but they do tend to stay with me for a long time. Writing helps me to process the complicated feelings that arise from upsets. A particularly cathartic exercise employed by some writers is to create characters based on the people who have hurt us and revelling in killing them off in the most satisfying way possible. It’s not something I have done myself, yet, there’s always the possibility of that changing!

For those of a sensitive nature, like myself, I highly recommend reading The Highly Sensitive Person by Elaine N. Aron. Reading this in my late teens really helped me to appreciate my sensitivity, and when I need to I still go back to it to help me cope with some of the harsher elements of adult life.

Have you had a negative experience with someone online? How did you handle it? Are you a dweller? Or are you able to move on quickly? Let me know in the comments below, perhaps we can support one another.

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Filed under: Lifestyle, Personal Tagged: bully, cyber bullying, highly sensitive person, online etiquette